Clawdia
by FoxWolf64
Summary: Morton becomes curious about who his mother is, so he looks all over the castle for hints or clues. But as he searches its many dark corridors, he finds something he does not expect.


**Clawdia**

Morton Koopa Jr. stared at the TV. It was an old television, and it didn't play his favorite station, so he simply stared at the static. Eventually, he turned off the TV, and rested on his bed. His thoughts traveled to his mother. _Who was she? What was she like? Where is she now? _As he tried to process all of this, the clock turned to 12:00 midnight. He wasn't supposed to be awake at this hour, but he couldn't stop thinking about it.

Eventually, he decided to look around the house for some helpful memorabilia. He snuck out of his room and into the garage. He tried to stay hidden behind the airships, sneaking along the wall.

"Morton, what are you doing up this late?" The voice shocked Morton, and he looked around until he saw Ludwig standing there.

"I...would ask you the same question," Morton replied.

"I'm 14, and therefore allowed to stay up later than you, you being only 8. So if I were you, I'd slip back into bed before I get caught."

"Well, uh..." Morton tried coming up with an excuse, but he couldn't think of one fast enough.

"Is it that Clawdia thing? I know you're all cooped up in that."

_How did he know that? _Morton wondered. "Uh, yeah."

"I could help you find some pictures in the attic," Ludwig offered. Morton nodded, and Ludwig led him up to the attic (which, conveniently, was right by the garage).

As Morton dug up everything, he couldn't quite find any pictures. All he saw were pictures of Bowser when he was a kid, taken by Kamek. They were interesting - Morton couldn't deny that - but they weren't what he was looking for. Finally, he saw something. It was a picture of Bowser on his wedding day, and a female koopa standing right beside him.

She had blue hair like Ludwig's, a pink shell like Wendy and Roy's, and 2 fangs. She was smiling brightly, and her eyes were sparkling. He hypnotically stared at it for a moment, until Ludwig snapped him out of it. "Don't you want to find more? You're looking at that thing like it's gravity pulling on your eyes."

Morton put the picture down, and looked for more. The only memorabilia were the old family pictures and photoshoots. They didn't tell him enough, however. "Uh, Ludwig? Don't you know a bit about her?"

"Really? I was 7 when she died, how do you expect me to know anything?" he growled.

"Eh, nothing. Stupid question, move along..." But he couldn't get it off his mind. He needed to find out more: there was something about this that kept calling him. As he went to sleep, he knew that he would do something about this: no matter what it took.

_THE NEXT MORNING..._

"And what do you want me to do about this?" Larry said, turning around from his drawings. Morton had gotten up early the next morning to ask his siblings for help, and Larry was his first contact. Since Larry was known around the kingdom as the "Emperor of Eavesdropping," he was highly regarded as the spy of the koopalings.

"Well, you're good with sneaking about and being unnoticed, so I was wondering if you could listen to Bowser to see if he talks about it much," Morton explained.

"I guess I could look into it further, but it may take awhile," Larry said thoughtfully. "Of course I won't be able to do it right at this moment, but I will get it done." He went back to drawing, and Morton went back to his room. Tossing a ball in and out of his hands, he thought even more about it. _Why am I wondering about this? Does it matter? _Still, he couldn't keep his mind off of it.

That night, as he was about to fall asleep, Larry barged into his room. "Hey, I didn't exactly hear anything interesting, but I did see something. You might want to come with me." He dragged Morton out of bed into the lava hall. Taking a secret exit above the main hall, he led Morton to a red pipe.

"It's just a red pipe," Morton observed.

"It's not the pipe, it's what's through it that I wanted to show you," Larry grinned, then jumped through. Morton, left with no choice, followed him.

Sliding down the many odds and ends of the pipe, coming out in the middle of a misty dungeon. Walking around, he saw Larry and a statue of a female koopa looking very much like the one he saw in the pictures.

"Oh, so this is what you were talking about," Morton realized. "But...it's just a statue. Why would you want to show me this if I've already-"

The eyes of the statue suddenly glowed, and the pipe was blocked. "At last..." a voice crooned. "You can be the children that I never got to see..."

Roy woke up the next morning after falling off his bed. _Agh! Why do I always do this? _He saw the basketball in the corner of his room. _I should probably return this to Larry. I've had it for quite a while, _he thought, taking the ball and rushing next door to Larry's room.

"Hey, Larry! Here's your B-Ball. You wanna shoot some..." He looked to see that Larry was gone. "Uh...Larry? Bro?" He looked around. _Weird...he's usually up at 7:30, not 6:30! What's going on? _He ran to Ludwig's room. "Hey Ludwig, you know where Larry went?"

"No idea," Ludwig said, turning from his piano. "BUT...I did hear some footsteps last night. 2 sets, at least. One was really light, the other was heavy. I'm guessing Morton wanted to know more about Clawdia, and Larry was just helping."

"Clawdia?" Roy asked, confuddled.

"The name of our mom. She passed away just after giving birth to Larry," Ludwig explained. "Morton was curious, I helped him look for some stuff the other night, but I guess he wanted to know even more. Who knows where they are now?"

"They should at least be in the castle, if they're looking for that. But where would they be?" Roy wondered.

And it came to Ludwig. "The lava room! There's a whole selection of secret exits. They could have stumbled there."

"You're a genius, Ludwig!" Roy exclaimed. "Well, actually I would have thought of that."

"Yeah, anybody would have. It's not that good of an idea, but whatever. We're getting somewhere."

"Well, what time is there to waste?" Roy said enthusiastically. "Let's do this!" He ran down the hall, with Ludwig sleepily following behind.

Once they reached the lava room, Ludwig looked around at all the possible ways they could have gone. "Well, they could've gone down that pipe...but then again they would've ended up ahead of the hall, and we would still be able to find them, so..."

"How about up here?" Roy suggested, hitting an invisible block, which created a beanstalk leading to a crevasse in the ceiling, which contained a pipe. Roy and Ludwig climbed the beanstalk, then saw the pipe.

"Hm. Never saw this here," Ludwig commented. "Should we go in?"

"I don't see why not," Roy shrugged, then jumped right in.

"Yeah, right behind you, captain..." Ludwig muttered sarcastically, then jumped in as well.

Through the pipe was a maze, starting with a statue of what looked like Clawdia. Roy and Ludwig looked at it for awhile, then at each other.

"They were here," they said simultaneously.

"So what do we do?" Roy asked Ludwig.

"We should split up. The maze has 2 entrances, and if we both go those ways, we have a sure shot of finding them," Ludwig analyzed.

"Good idea," he agreed, taking the left path, with Ludwig taking the right.

While Ludwig was walking down the hall, he saw several statue heads of Bowser on the walls. _What's all this for? _Ludwig wondered. _Is Clawdia begging for Bowser back?_

As these thoughts rushed through his head, a boomerang whizzed by his head. He moved out of the way, then saw who caught it: Larry.

Roy heard something moving in the air, then looked around. He didn't see anything like what he heard, but he did see a large, dark figure in the distance. It wasn't until the figure raised its hammer that Roy realized who it was.

"Larry!" Ludwig said, shocked. "What the hell are you trying to accomplish?"

"I only listen to Clawdia now. And she ordered me to destroy any and all intruders. I'm sorry, but I have to do this." He began to raise his boomerang, when Ludwig spun in his shell, maneuvering all of Larry's attacks.

Jumping out of his shell, he came behind Larry, spitting fireballs, desperately hoping all of them would miss. Larry jumped out of the way, however, and continued to throw his boomerang. Ludwig flipped up in the air over Larry, and landed, performing a ground pound. It took Larry off guard, knocking him onto his shell.

Morton slowly moved near Roy, who crouched down, shell spikes up. "Whoa, man! I thought we were cool!" Roy said, confused.

"I'm fulfilling my lifelong dream: serving my mother. And now I am. So I hate to break it to you, but you're dying today," Morton said, chuckling afterwards. _Of course! He's been brainwashed! _Roy thought, as he moved out of the way of Morton's senseless swings.

After a long time of this, the ground shook suddenly, and both koopas were knocked off their feet. Roy ended up landing on his stomach, while Morton landed on his shell. Roy got up easily, and stood over Morton, picking up his hammer, and pointing it at him. "I don't want to have to do this, but apparently I have no choice."

At about the same time, Ludwig held Larry's boomerang up to his chin. "Don't make me do this. I don't want to, but after this, I just might."

And as both of the groups of siblings fought, a beam of light exploded in the middle of the chamber. All 4 koopas were knocked against the wall, and a ghost-like figure appeared from the explosion. It appeared as the statue at the front of the maze, with blue hair and a pink shell. By that time, it was clear the figure was Clawdia Koopa.

"What is this? Why are my children fighting?" she asked, worriedly.

Ludwig stood with his jaw dropped. "It's...really you," he said. "I can't believe it..."

She turned to Ludwig. "Yes, it is me. I remember you, Kooky."

"Oh, no. I just...go by...Ludwig, now."

"Sorry about that," she said. "But why are you guys fighting?"

"Well," Roy began. "We thought they were brainwashed into a cult or something. But...it's you, I guess. Don't really remember you, but..."

"You know, I guess I just thought you weren't who you really were. I just wanted to see all my kids grown-up. I never lived to see you, but now I do."

"So...you're a ghost? I'm really confused," Roy said, dumbfounded.

"Yeah. I died about 7 years ago, I still don't quite know why. I'm even more confused as to why I'm standing here right now..." She started to glow even more brightly. "Well, I guess my time here is up. I will be watching all of you, though."

All 4 koopalings stared as she glowed platinum yellow, then vanished completely. Larry and Morton suddenly looked around, as if they had just woken up. "Where are we?" "Why is my skin black?" "Is that a star on the back of my head?" "Why is my shell black, too?" "Can we go get some food?" "Where's my iPod charger?"

"Guys, let's just get out of here. It's kind of useless to keep waiting," Ludwig said. Everybody agreed, and found their way back to each other. One by one, they went into the pipe. And just before Morton got in the pipe, he took one last look at the statue. The eyes flashed, flickered, then remained still again. He smiled, then squeezed into the pipe.

_EPILOGUE:_

5 figures stood at the gate into Koopa Country. In front of the other 4 stood a white-haired koopa with a silver shell. He carried a golden sword in the shape of a lightning bolt on his back, and he had golden eyes.

Behind him, another koopa smiled mischievously. He sported a mohawk with a 3-color palette: green, red, and orange. Along with that, he carried a nunchuck, with a green shell.

Right next to him was another koopa. He wore his red hair in a backwards mohawk, with red sunglasses and 2 spiked leg braces. He had a red shell, and carried a wand.

Just behind him was a female koopa with blonde hair tied back. She stood, there, arms crossed. She wore a blue denim jacket, with black jeans and a light blue shell. Just on her back, glaring off into the distance, was the youngest of the 5. He had blue hair spreading out in nearly every direction and 3 fangs: 2 at the edges of his mouth and 1 in the center of his lip. His blue shell had little to no spikes, as he was still young.

The 5 stood at the gate, looking at each other, and then at their leader. "Well, what do we do, Jules?" the red-haired one said.

"What we do," the one in front answered, "is rain down hell on itself." He smirked, then walked through the gate, motioning the others to follow.

_TO BE CONTINUED..._


End file.
